


Breaking The Rules (AKA The Ladrien Fistfight)

by ThisKwamiNeeds_aNap



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (someone breaks a rib but its not caused by violence), Anxiety, Broken Bones, F/M, Fighting, Fluffy Ending, Identity Reveal, Kissing, Miscommunication, PTSD, Panic Attack, Theoretical talk of death, Unreliable Narrator, Yelling, death mention, description of injury, mentions of nausea, obviously heed the warnings but its tamer than the warnings make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisKwamiNeeds_aNap/pseuds/ThisKwamiNeeds_aNap
Summary: Marinette may or may not be dying, but she’s still going to do her best to fix every single problem in the world. She’s not expecting Adrien to be the one who tries to stop her.(Takes place immediately after Kwami Buster)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 57
Kudos: 444





	Breaking The Rules (AKA The Ladrien Fistfight)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Runadaemon for beta reading this for me! This took way longer than expected, but it was worth the wait. I had a lot of fun writing an identity reveal for the first time! Enjoy the chaos that Marinette manages to dig herself into and the shenanigans that ensue.
> 
> Keep in mind: Marinette is having a panic attack for a lot of the fic, so she’s a very biased narrator

As the adrenaline wore off, Marinette started to regret the sheer amount of miraculous she had worn at once.

Throwing on every miraculous in the box was, in hindsight, a reckless move. According to Wayzz, no one had even survived something like that before.

But Marinette hadn’t died. She hadn’t even been seriously injured. She guessed she should be grateful for that. Still, her heartbeat was distractingly noisy, and everything smelled like burnt metal and smoke, and she couldn’t move her head very well, and her hair felt almost sharp where it rubbed against her neck. Even though she had lucked out in the damage department, it was not fun to hide this from her class. 

Which reminded her, she was in class. Marinette jumped as she remembered that she was supposed to be taking notes. She leaned across her desk to grab her pencil, bracing in anticipation of vertigo. Except then her body brushed against the edge of the desk, and-

Oh wow, this was not a good feeling.

Apparently, she was more than a little bit injured.

Every nerve in her body was screaming. It took a few long seconds for the pain to die down enough for Marinette to have any idea where it was coming from. She was pretty sure that the white-hot pain was emanating from somewhere in her shoulder, but it could’ve been anywhere in her upper body.

Marinette gritted her teeth and tried not to whimper as she rode out the waves of pain, which were now manifesting in the form of nausea and throbbing in her hands. Her ears were ringing again, loud enough that she couldn’t hear any of Miss Bustier’s lecture.

When she was able to control her limbs, she gingerly brought her hand closer to her face.  
Oh, that wasn’t good. There was a shiny pink burn mark wrapped around her wrist, in the exact shape of the snake bracelet she had worn. The burn must have formed while she was fighting Kwami Buster, but she hadn’t even felt it at the time. Adrenaline really did a good job of blocking things out.

Now, her hand was pulsing with pain, but Marinette could deal with it. At least the Ladybug costume had gloves. She couldn’t imagine how she’d explain the mark to her partner.

“What are you looking at?” Alya whispered conspiratorially.

Marinette’s stupid reflexes kicked in, and she whipped her hand away, and it slammed against her ribs and- she wasn’t going to scream, she wasn’t going to scream, she wasn’t going to scream, she wasn’t….

Somehow, she kept quiet, but she still flinched hard enough that Alya’s smile vanished.

“Are you okay, Marinette?”

“Yeah, I’m totally fine. I just whacked my finger on something earlier. I’m so clumsy.” Marinette attempted to laugh nonchalantly, which made her shoulder and chest hurt even more.

“Aw, I’m sorry. Do you want me to go to the nurse’s office with you, or get you some ice?” Alya kept her voice low, but Miss Bustier still heard Alya’s whispering and turned to look straight at her. Alya immediately put on her best innocent face and started dutifully writing in her notebook, which seemed to fool their teacher, even though Marinette recognized the notebook as Alya’s Ladyblog-brainstorming journal.

As soon as Mlle. Bustier looked away, Alya glanced back toward Marinette, raising her eyebrow in expectation of a response.

“Thanks, but I’ll be okay,” Marinette said. She knew from experience that Alya would plan an entire heist if she thought Marinette was too shy to ask for help, so she rushed to move the focus away from herself.

“What are you writing about?”

Alya’s face lit up, to Marinette’s relief. “I’m not gonna spill too much until I have a few more details figured out,” Alya said, leaning closer to her best friend, “but I think I may have just gotten a major piece of evidence about Ladybug’s secret identity.”

Marinette felt her fight-or-flight reflexes kicking back in. She couldn’t panic. That would only make her seem suspicious. She just had to smile through it all.

“That’s great, Alya.” Marinette’s heart started pounding loud enough to aggravate her headache as Alya turned back to her notebook, frantically scribbling down some diagram with a bunch of arrows.

How could Marinette have been so stupid? She had been so worried about Chat Noir, it hadn’t even registered that Alya had seen the video too. Alya, the girl who had been obsessed with Ladybug’s secret identity from the beginning, who had bombarded Trixx with questions every chance she got, had seen their teacher rambling about seeing Tikki and Plagg at their school.

Marinette tried to calm herself down. She just had to think about this rationally, right? This couldn’t possibly be as bad as her anxiety was telling her it was.

She trusted Alya. Even on the brink of an anxiety attack, she knew that Alya would never use her secret identity for evil. Even right now, Alya was smiling and humming as she sketched out her ideas. It was impossible to imagine her as an enemy. Alya was smart, too. She’d know not to put any sensitive information anywhere that Hawkmoth could get to it. They’d had a few slip-ups in the past, but Alya learned quickly, and she was handling her large audience with maturity.

But what if Alya got akumatized?

What if Ladybug got hurt during an akuma battle and Alya accidentally called out the wrong name?  
It would only take one slip of the tongue, during a Livestream or interview or anything else, and then that was it. Hawkmoth would use his advantage to crush them all and Master Fu would take her miraculous and Chat Noir would hate her for telling someone else her secret identity before him and Tikki would be so disappointed she’d never even want to see Marinette again even if she could. Marinette’s life was over.

She needed to stay focused and think of a solution, but she was hyperventilating, and her entire chest ached with every inhale, and she couldn’t even remember what she had been panicking about because the pain was too loud.

”Marinette? Are you sure you’re okay? Your face is turning gray. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the nurse?”

Focus.

Make a plan.

Breathe.

No, ow, don’t breathe like that.

Breathe shallowly, but also slowly.

No wait, that’s not enough air, breathe faster.

Nope, that’s hyperventilating again, never mind.

She needed to tell Alya that she shouldn’t look for Ladybug’s secret identity. She just needed to tell her to stop, that was all. Alya listened to her, right? So she could just, she could just…

She couldn’t do anything

There was nothing she could say without making Alya suspicious.

Marinette tried to tune back in to Alya’s voice, hoping to ground herself, but then she accidentally overheard a conversation from the back of the room.

“I’m just saying, I don’t understand how anyone could buy that. Why did he even win that weird show?’”

“You mean ‘Alternative Truths: where everything isn’t always true, but nothing is really false?”

“Shush Kim, I’m trying to roast my brother. Anyway, how are his weird alien conspiracy theories any more believable than anything else on that show?”

Max cleared his throat.

“Why does it even matter? It’s not as if ‘Alternative Truths’ was ever a beacon of scientific accuracy.”

“Because I love my brother, but this argument has been going on for so long I can’t back down now. It’s a matter of pride. And he just had his ego inflated in front of all of Paris-“

“More like the 3% of Parisians who were watching TV when that show came on, and only the ones who were paying attention.”

“Exactly! That’s way too many people. So I need to be prepared to argue with a rock-solid stance.”

“Fine. Statistically, it’s easier for people to believe fantastical things about the distant past because the past already feels like a fantasy, but the modern-day is real and so people only connect it with real things that they experience themselves.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Have you seen Paris in the last few months? Our class went on a field trip that got hijacked by your mom, who was possessed by an evil butterfly and then took our class’s train into space. How is anything about magic surprising to anyone anymore?”

“That’s actually a really good point.”

Oh no.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

Max had been given a miraculous too. She was pretty sure she had left him alone with his kwami, Kaalki, a few times. He was so curious about everything, she was sure that he would’ve asked Kaalki a ton of questions. And now Alix had brought up Startrain, the exact battle where Pegase had been created as a hero, and she had compared it to the magical creatures that Mrs. Mendeleev had talked about, which meant that Max would be thinking about the similarities because that’s what he did, and it wouldn’t take long before he figured out that the creatures in the video were kwamis and then figured out that Marinette was Ladybug and announced it to the entire world.

Wait.

Alix had seen a kwami before, too. Marinette hadn’t given her one yet, but Alix had watched herself from the future detransform, which meant that there was a chance she could put it together too.  
Marinette’s head spun. How many of her classmates had she made superheroes again? Chloe had stolen the bee miraculous. Who knew what kind of conversations she’d had with Pollen before announcing her status as a superhero to the world. And maybe Chloe hadn’t told everyone about kwamis, but if she figured out Ladybug’s secret identity, they were screwed.

And then there was Kim,

and Max,

and Alix,

and Alya,

and Adrien had been given the snake miraculous, so he knew a little bit about kwamis even if he wasn’t a superhero anymore.

At least Luka wasn’t in her class, but Juleka was, and she might tell her brother about the show.

And Adrien was friends with Kagami, so he’d obviously tell her.

This was rapidly turning into a nightmare. Why had she given so many miraculous to her classmates? One of them was bound to figure it out now, even if Marinette had told them how important it was to keep her identity secret. There was nothing she could do, was there?

Her lungs were burning and her throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper dipped in arsenic and she needed to stop breathing so hard or she was going to throw up from the pain.

“Marinette… Marinette…”

Something flashed in Alya’s eyes, and Marinette knew instantly that Alya was about to raise her hand to talk to their teacher and tell her she was worried about Marinette. She wanted to tell Alya not to, that she was okay, but her throat was closing up and she was hit by another wave of debilitating nausea. Then the adrenaline picked up again and Marinette was raising her hand.

“Miss Bustier, I don’t feel so good.” She blurted out before Alya could say anything.

Why had she said that? How was saying that any better than Alya saying it? Why didn’t she want Alya to talk to the teacher again? Also, why did her collarbone feel so numb?

The entire class was looking at Marinette now, probably because she had just yelled out to their teacher in the middle of class. She realized that she was probably supposed to say something else.

Ok, well, here was her chance to throw the class off of Ladybug’s trail. Might as well use it.

“I, um…” Marinette interrupted herself by collapsing into a fit of coughing which made her stomach feel agonizing. Her mouth tasted like copper and she hoped that she wasn’t coughing up blood.

Marinette braced herself. She did her best to turn on acting mode and pretend that this was fine. How had she dealt with this when it was just Chat? That could work, right? It wasn’t cheating to copy strategy from herself. She just had to make it as convincing as possible.

Marinette tried to look as sad as she could, which wasn’t hard because the soreness in her chest was so intense that tears were already leaking out of her eyes involuntarily.

“What does it even matter?” she said dramatically. “I already blew my secret identity in front of Ladybug, I can’t ever be a hero again. It won’t change anything if I keep it a secret from anyone else!”

She tried to gesture dramatically as she spoke, which was a mistake. Her entire upper body again erupted in pain and she audibly hissed and then whimpered. The entire class was still staring at her, which was good, she just needed to… she needed to… What was she doing again?

Alya spoke first. “You’re a superhero?”

Marinette sniffled. She couldn’t quite tell if she was acting or if it was a reaction to the pain.

“I WAS a superhero. But then I accidentally detransformed in front of Chat Noir because I’m so thoughtless and now my chances of being a hero again are ruined and-” and then she was coughing again.

Miss Bustier started to kick back into action. Marinette didn’t want her to call the hospital or her parents, because she had no idea what she’d even say to them, so she just muttered “I know I need medical attention, you’re right, I’m gonna go call Ladybug bye!” as she sprinted towards the door.

“You have Ladybug’s phone number?” Chloe asked impulsively.

“Um, not exactly, but, I’ll figure something out!” Marinette called as she darted out the door.

She didn’t stop until she had ducked into a small closet and locked the door behind her, and then she collapsed to the ground.

Her hands were twitching, and she couldn’t tell if it was some additional thing that was wrong with her or if it was just a side effect of extreme pain. She gasped for air, her lungs overriding her screaming abdomen, as Tikki slowly flew out of her purse to look at her.

“Marinette?” she asked. Tikki was usually incredibly gentle and sweet, but now she was looking at Marinette like she was made of spun sugar that would dissolve if someone so much as breathed too hard near her.

Marinette hummed. “Mmmm… ‘m okay”

“No,” Tikki said. “You’re not.”

Somehow, the anguish on Tikki’s face was worse than any of the pain she was already in.

“Tikki, no, it’s fine really.”

“No, Marinette, listen to me!”

Marinette physically recoiled from Tikki’s outburst.

“Oh no, I’m sorry Marinette, I didn’t mean to yell, I just…” Tikki’s eyes started to sparkle with tears and Marinette felt even more nauseous. “I just- I think-” she broke off into unintelligible mumbling.

“You think what, Tikki?” Marinette interrupted.

Tikki turned to look straight at Marinette. Her eyes looked more gray than blue in the dark of the closet, her antennae hung low, and a tear fell from her cheek.

“You have a broken rib. Or possibly broken ribs.”

“That explains some things”

“You were having a panic attack back there because of this, and-” more tears started falling “-you could’ve been badly hurt. Using that many miraculous at once was a bad decision, and I still don’t think you understand that.”

“It’s fine, though. I’m still here, Tikki.”

“But what if you weren’t? What about next time? What if I can’t be next to you for ten minutes-” Tikki’s voice cracked and the sound echoed in Marinette’s skull. “Can I trust you to not get yourself killed?”

“Of course you can Tikki. I knew what I was doing”

“No, you didn’t. You don’t know how stupidly risky-”

“Maybe I do-”

“Other Ladybugs have died!” Tikki yelled.

“Oh.”

Tikki took a deep breath and continued with a much lower voice.

“Other Ladybugs have died doing that same thing. The miraculous are dangerous. Even one can break someone if they’re too power-hungry. I know that you think that you’re invincible but you’re not and I need you to realize that right now so you don’t realize it later because you’re dead, but I don’t even know if that’s possible and-”

Marinette started to subconsciously tune out Tikki’s words. She desperately wanted to tell Tikki to giggle, or tell some joke, or do anything normal, because her seriousness was starting to scare Marinette.

“I’m sorry,” Marinette finally said. “What did you just say? I didn’t- I wasn’t paying attention, I’m really sorry.”

Tikki froze, taking in Marinette’s glazed eyes for a second.

“I think…” Tikki hesitated for a moment like she had to force herself to continue “that maybe, it might not be a good idea for you to keep being Ladybug.”

Marinette’s veins flooded with ice. She thought she had been panicking earlier, but it was nothing compared to the sheer wrongness that she felt now. She needed to be Ladybug. Tikki couldn’t leave her. She needed to make Tikki say that, but her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak, and her mind refused to provide her with any comeback other than “no no no no no no no.”

She needed more time. She needed to not be doing this right now. She needed Tikki to not leave her. She needed-

“Tikki, Spots on!” she yelled. Normally, Tikki could resist transforming if she didn’t want to, but Marinette didn’t normally give the command with so much force. Marinette felt the familiar magic swirl around her and form her costume.

And then the closet was silent.

With her suit on, Marinette felt much better, physically at least. It supported her ribs, so they no longer tormented her when she moved. Her hair was no longer matted, her hand barely stung, and her vision and hearing cleared.

Emotionally, though, that was a different story.

Marinette’s bag lay on the floor of the closet where she had thrown it. She only realized that because she heard her phone ringing loudly through the fabric. She picked it up to see that her mom was calling her

What? Marinette’s mom would never call her in the middle of the school day. It must have been a misdial. Marinette let the phone go to voicemail. A few seconds later, she received a series of text messages.

Marinette, where are you?

Chat Noir is at our house. He says he’s looking for you

Marinette, I’m really worried

are you okay?

Please answer

Why on Earth would Chat Noir be at her house? Never mind, that was a problem to deal with later. There was no way that Marinette could explain her situation to her mom right now, so she just put her phone on silent and sat.

Alone.

In the closet.

She considered trying to go home or to go back to class, but Ladybug didn’t belong in either of those places, and she couldn’t transform back without talking to Tikki.

Her yo-yo showed that she had a lot of new messages from Chat Noir, which she really hoped wasn’t related to him going over to her house. Talking to Chat Noir didn’t sound like a good idea right now either, especially if it was about Marinette, so she chose to ignore them for now. Maybe going for a walk would help? She needed to get out of the dark cramped closet if she was going to improve her mental state.

Marinette took one cautious step out of the door and froze.

Whelp, there was no way she’d be able to think rationally now.

Maybe Tikki had somehow twisted the power of luck to ruin Marinette’s life because, by all logic, this should not be happening. Adrien should still be in the classroom. There was no reason for him to be standing in the hallway directly across from her, standing still, his brilliant green eyes fixed on her.  
She thought she saw a blur darting away, but she could’ve been hallucinating at this point. Adrien just continued to stare at her like a deer caught in the headlights. Marinette didn’t think her expression looked much different.

The silence was violently broken by Adrien’s phone, which slipped out of his hand and clanged against the ground. Both teens jumped. After a moment of nervous laughter, Adrien awkwardly bent down to pick up his phone, never breaking eye contact with Marinette.

After another beat of tense silence, they both started talking at once.

Adrien turned bright red. “Sorry, you can go first, m- I mean- Ladybug.” Marinette was pretty sure he said something else, too, but it sounded less like words and more like frantic squeaking.

“No, it’s okay, you can talk first.” The reminder that, to him, she was Ladybug, made it a little easier for Marinette to keep her voice steady. She didn’t even need to think about any of Marinette’s issues right now, she could just go into superhero mode, stalling for time as she furiously searched for an excuse

Adrien nodded, and Marinette realized that his face had turned bright pink. Was he okay? He was stuttering over his words, too. Hopefully, he wasn’t sick.

“I- um-“ Maybe Adrien was just overheating, she thought as he nervously giggled, because it suddenly felt suffocating warm in the hallway. He briefly made eye contact with Marinette again, and his blush deepened. “I-“

“It’s okay,” Marinette laughed, trying to summon as much of her Ladybug social strength as possible. “I promise I don’t bite. I’m a bug, not a cat.”

Adrien laughed just a little too hard at that line, and then took a deep breath.

“I- you heard about what happened, right? That’s why you’re here? Sorry, I shouldn’t have doubted you, I know you always help people, that’s like your whole thing. Thank you so much for visiting me after, you know…” he trailed off, and Marinette thought about the week after Desperada had attacked. Technically, she hadn’t made any attempt to help Adrien, which she felt really bad about, but she couldn’t have known how hurt he was. Luckily, Chat Noir had talked to him and figured out something was wrong and he told Ladybug during one of their patrols that Adrien needed to talk to her. For a few days, she got frequent calls from Chat Noir letting her know that Adrien was having nightmares about her disappearing into dust. After about a week, he assured her that he was fine and didn’t need her help anymore, which had been both relieving and disappointing.

“Oh, of course, thank you for all your help in that battle…” Marinette trailed off midway through her sentence, realizing that she had hit a sore spot and frantically trying to backtrack before Adrien could argue that Aspik hadn’t helped at all.

“Anyway, what did you need help with right now?”

Adrien blinked at her suspiciously.

“Um, Marinette?”

She panicked. He couldn’t possibly have figured her secret identity out that easily, right?

“Hahaha, who’s Marinette?” she said.

Oh God, what kind of idiot deflection was that? Ladybug knew who Marinette was, she had just told everyone that Ladybug had recruited Marinette as Multimouse. Now Adrien was going to see through her for sure and-

She was expecting him to look suspicious. She hadn’t expected him to tense up and fix her with a gaze so intense it was almost a glare, as all humor melted from his face.

“I’m really worried about my friend, Marinette.” He finally said with forced calmness.

At least he hadn’t figured out her secret identity, but Jesus, was there anyone who wasn’t stressing about Marinette’s health? She decided to not think too much about the “friend” comment. There were already so many feelings she was shoving back. She wasn’t about to let the dam break because of her stupid unrequited crush.

She had to focus on more important matters, like doing damage control on her blunder and steering Adrien away from her trail so that the world didn’t end like it had the last time she had accidentally lead Adrien to her secret identity.

“Oh, hahaha, yea, I knew that. I was just, joking… You know me, always the jokester…”

Oh God. Why was she even allowed to talk?

Adrien continued to stare at her silently.

“So, you are here for Marinette, then?”

She forced her brain to work and think about this morning. She had made quite a scene. And she had said she would call on Ladybug’s help. So Ladybug did have a reason to be in the school hallway: checking on Marinette. As long as she could convince Adrien that nothing was wrong, he could go back to class with no suspicions, and she could escape the school grounds before anyone else saw her and wondered why she wasn’t in the same room as Marinette even though she was supposedly there to help her.

“Yes, I am here for Marinette,” she finally responded, hoping that Adrien didn’t notice her long pause or the fact that her hands were starting to get incredibly sweaty underneath her gloves. “I already talked to her and she’s perfectly fine. She’s on her way home.”

“Okay, but why were you in the closet just now?” Adrien asked.

Marinette froze again. How could she possibly explain that?

“Wait, nevermind. You had Marinette walk home alone?” Adrien asked with thinly veiled horror.

“No, I um, that was the reason I was in the closet. You see, well, I called up my partner Chat Noir to take her home and I was-”

“You called who?”

Adrien’s face had gone white, which didn’t make any sense.

“Chat Noir?” she replied meekly. “You know, cat superhero? Wears all black?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t an akuma or a fake or-”

“Yes!” she interrupted. “I’m sure it was him.”

“Okay, but…” Adrien took a deep breath, staring intensely at the wall behind Marinette. “I just saw Chat Noir here, at the school, literally seconds before you appeared, and he said he was looking for you and he couldn’t find you.”

Whelp, lying had failed her. Time to think of a more convincing lie.

“Ok, so I lied, but I promise I was about to call my partner up to come to take her home. I was just, um, doing some first aid, to help Marinette, and now that I’m sure she’s okay I’m going to call my partner so he can pick her up.”

“So, where’s Marinette?” Adrien asked. His voice cracked, and when Marinette looked at him, she realized he was shaking.

“Oh, she’s, um, she’s in that closet. She’s totally fine, it’s not a big deal, she might even be back in school before the day is over, she just needs to nap for a bit.”

“Can I see her?”

“No!” Marinette replied, flinching as she accidentally spoke with way too much force.

“But if she’s totally fine then why-”

“Just trust me, okay? You know I’m not a liar.”

“You just lied to me thirty seconds ago.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“I just want to know if Marinette’s okay”

“And I’m telling you, she’s fine.”

“She didn’t look fine in class today.”

“She was being overdramatic.”

Adrien hissed in a breath. He went silent and stood perfectly still, with his eyes closed, for a full minute. When he opened his eyes, Marinette instinctively took a step back because of how deadly serious he looked.

“Where. Is. Marinette?”

“She’s fine!” Marinette yelled.

“Then why are you hiding her away in a closet and dodging all my questions? Why do you need Chat Noir to take her home?”

“You know what, I don’t even need him to take her home. Marinette can walk home herself. That’s how fine she is!”

“So, not only are you too caught up in being a famous person to personally help Marinette, you’re not even willing to put in the effort to call your stupid sidekick in to clean up your mistakes?”

Marinette didn’t register any of what happened next until a few seconds later, as her mind processed everything at once. Her ears were ringing, and her vision swam, and she had heard a loud sound and someone, probably her, had yelled, and Adrien was staring at her in shock, and oh sweet Jesus she had punched him in the stomach.

She had punched Adrien Agreste.

She had-

Holy frick.

This could not get any worse.

“I’m sorry, I just, don’t like people insulting Chat Noir. That was an overreaction though, I shouldn’t have… It was an accident.”

Adrien finally got ahold of his voice again, and he glared at her.

“Oh, so it’s okay for you to emotionally and physically ruin anyone else who you hand a miraculous too, but you draw the line at someone not tripping over themselves with adoration for the clumsy, immature, kitten who follows you around and-”

Marinette’s hand shot toward Adrien’s face, which she felt much less guilty about it this time, especially when Adrien reflexively shoved her hand away before she could punch him again.

Marinette steadied her breathing as Adrien almost apologized and then caught himself. “You know what?” She said. “This is a waste of my time. You don’t get to tell me how to do my job, and I’m done with trying to talk reasonably. I’m leaving.” She tried to strut away, but Adrien grabbed onto her forearm.

“Adrien.” She tried to sound threatening. “Let go of me.”

Adrien stared at his hand in shock.

“No.” he said, so softly she could barely hear him. It was said with so much disbelief it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“What did you say?” Ladybug asked. Her adrenaline was picking up again, from either the anger or the fact that she was so close to Adrien she could count the flecks of gold in his eyes, which somehow made her more irate. 

“I said no. Not until you help Marinette.”

Ladybug huffed and rolled her eyes. She yanked her arm out of Adrien’s grasp with ease, knocking him off balance. Unfortunately, he chose to pull Ladybug down with him and tackle her to the ground.

As soon as they landed, Adrien shuffled back, awkwardly trying to simultaneously pin her arms down and give her as much personal space as possible, so he ended up practically planking on top of her.

His position made it very easy for Ladybug to sweep her legs out from under him. She flipped them over so she on top of him, but as soon as she stood up, Adrien shifted and kicked her in the shin. She winced, and he used her moment of distraction to wrap his arms around her ankle, which was more irritating than anything else. She tried to shake her leg free, but moved too quickly and fell against the wall. She rammed her free knee into Adrien’s stomach, finally breaking his grip, and tried to steady herself. She wasn’t expecting Adrien to roll with her kick though, so he ended up standing up at the same time she did. He punched her in the stomach before she even registered that he was there. He darted toward the closet door, where she had said that Marinette was, and she scampered back to block the door before he could reach it.

“Adrien-“

He elbowed her in the ribs, which should have hurt a whole lot with her injuries but the suit made it only throb a little. Still, she was shoved a few feet to the side, and Adrien got his hand around the doorknob, and Marinette’s heart stopped beating.

Adrien turned back to her and froze when he saw her expression.

“I do trust you, Ladybug,” he said, his sudden softness making Marinette’s emotions spin even more wildly out of control. “I won’t open this door if you tell me not to. But I really” his voice cracked. “I need to know that Marinette’s okay. I can walk her home if you need me to, I can find Chat Noir, I can do anything you want, just please help Marinette. Or if you can’t do that, please let me help her.”

And then, fitting perfectly with Marinette’s pattern of bad luck today, a purple butterfly appeared in Marinette’s peripheral vision.

Her heartbeat raced at lightning speed. She reflexively caught it with her yoyo, but the shock lingered as she numbly devilized it. Adrien started audibly hyperventilating as soon as he processed what had just happened, and Marinette felt her heart shatter a little bit. She didn’t even know which of them the akuma had been coming for, but no matter what, it would’ve been her fault.

“I’m so sorry.” She said, stepping closer to Adrien

His bruised lip was her fault. His hair was mussed up and fell over his eyes, which was her fault, too. Impulsively, Marinette reached up to gently brush a loose lock of hair behind his ear.  
Adrien’s entire body locked up.

She could see it in the way that his posture stiffened, in his shallow breathing, in the faint fluttering of his eyelashes, in the fake smile that bordered on a smirk, and in the barely perceptible twitching of his fingers. Marinette didn’t need her Ladybug powers to realize that something had suddenly gone very wrong, but her enhanced perception kicked in and forced her to recognize the disturbing familiarity of it all. Her brain clicked into autopilot. She stepped back to give him space to breathe, started scanning for injuries, and pulled a heavy jacket out of her bag to wrap around his shoulders, and helped him sit down before she realized what she was doing.

When her mind engaged enough to think coherent thoughts, all it could do was repeat, “oh no my partner is hurt,” over and over.

It took a few long minutes for the puzzle pieces to click. She felt her train of thought come to a screeching halt.

“You’re Chat Noir.”

It was a statement, not a question. The words sounded strange in the air, but she was completely certain they were true. His pupils were a different shape, and he didn’t have cat ears, but when she looked at the boy curled up below her, it was easier to see her kitty than it was to see Adrien Agreste.

“Oh. My. God. You,” Marinette struggled for words. “You’re Chat Noir,” she repeated.

Chat’s -- or Adrien’s -- eyes were glazed over, and he nodded slightly.

Marinette’s brain was still playing static, so she had no idea how much time passed before Adrien jumped up and yelled: “Wait, no!”

“What?”

“I can’t-” and then he was hyperventilating again.

Marinette wracked her mind for a solution. If Chat Noir couldn’t talk, then-

“Plagg?” She asked. “Plagg, are you here?”

The tiny cat manifested a few seconds later.

“What’s wrong with Adrien?” she asked, trying and failing to sound calm so she wouldn’t give Adrien any more incentive to panic.

“Oh, he’s probably having a panic attack because he thinks you’ll take his miraculous because you figured out his secret identity,” Plagg said bitterly.

Marinette made the thrilling discovery that it was possible to feel even more guilty than she already was.

“Adrien, it’s okay,” she said. “We’ll figure this out kitty, you’re an amazing partner and we’re an amazing team.”

Adrien laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, I especially like how we just got into a fistfight in the middle of a school hallway.”

“That’s not- that’s not the point, we’re an amazing team, and- wait a minute!” she gasped.

“What?”

“Desperada!” she said, and Adrien flinched.

“That’s why you couldn’t take the snake miraculous.” Ladybug said. “You knew that we needed Chat Noir. So you just played along and pretended that you had tried and then made up an excuse to give the snake to someone else, and I couldn’t disprove it because I wouldn't have remembered the time loops anyway.”

Adrien laughed nervously. “That… would have been a good idea.”

“Adrien.” Marinette took a deep breath. “Chat. Kitty. Please do not tell me you actually spent months in a time loop where we couldn’t have even won anyway because we didn’t have Chat Noir there.”

“As you wish, my lady,” he said.

“Kitty…”

“If you don’t want me to say it, I won’t say it.”

“Adrien! You… You’re so dumb. I love you but you’re so dumb.”

Adrien smiled weakly.

“Wait,” Marinette said, her mind finally catching up to the last few minutes. “What started-” she gestured to Adrien’s position on the floor “this? You were mostly okay when I was punching you in the face, but then it calmed down for a second and you…”

“Oh, um, haha about that-”

“He has PTSD from when he was fighting Desperada, and you were a lot more physically affectionate with Aspik than you were with Chat Noir and you touching him on the cheek with your gloved hand is a trigger for him,” Plagg interjected.

Adrien winced. “Yeah, that.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” Adrien said. “I’ve been ruining everything and-”

“No no no no no, you don’t need to apologize. You’ve been amazing today. I was just- the bad stuff that happened is my fault, not yours. It's okay. Um, do you still want to see Marinette?”

“Please,” Adrien said. “I’m- I’m sorry, I got scared because…” he broke off again, but now that Marinette was thinking, she could see how someone being injured and then randomly disappearing would hit uncomfortably close to home for Adrien. 

“Okay, I’ll- I’ll go get her for you, gimme a second.”

She slowly slipped into the closet, taking care to make sure that Adrien couldn’t see the inside, and then shut the door.

She braced herself. Now was as good of a time as any to face her problems.

“Spots off” she whispered, followed immediately by “Oh shit, ow.” The pain in her ribs came back worse than ever. Her arms and spine felt like they were on fire. Well, it wasn’t like there was anything she could do about that now. She gritted her teeth and turned to Tikki. One impossible problem at a time.

“I’m sorry,” she and Tikki said simultaneously.

Marinette stopped in her tracks. “What are you sorry for?”

“I shouldn’t have scared you like that,” Tikki said. “I- first of all, I want you to know that I will never leave you if you don’t want me too. And even if we did get a new Ladybug, which I’d only do if you agreed to it, I would still visit you every day and I’d still love you just as much.” Tikki said. “I know that you’re an amazing Ladybug, and taking it away from you now wouldn’t make anything better, and I know that you are working to know your limits. You need help with that, not to have me suddenly ripped away from you.”

“Oh. Well, um, I just figured out Chat Noir’s secret identity, and half of my class is about to figure out mine, so are you still willing to let me be Ladybug? even with that?”

“There is a miraculous that controls memory. So we could erase your memory of Chat Noir’s secret identity and everything would go back to normal.”

“So then we should do that, right?”

“If you want my honest opinion, no.”

“Then-”

“Do you think that keeping your identities a secret is helping you, or Chat Noir?”

“Of course.” Marinette thought back over the last hour. She remembered that Adrien had spent months traumatizing himself that she wouldn’t have let happen if she’d known his secret identity. She thought about the preventable fistfight that they’d had because of her lie to protect her identity, and the akuma, and-

It suddenly hit her that the akuma would’ve either taken out her or Chat Noir, leaving the other one to fight their partner, and it had very nearly hit them,

“Okay, it’s been doing more harm than good lately. But Master Fu said-”

“I don’t care what he said,”

Marinette narrowed her eyes as Tikki continued.

“He’s not even a real guardian, he didn’t complete the training. He shouldn’t get to control every choice of your life.”

“Are you suggesting I try to argue with him? Because I don’t think I’d win. And I don’t think losing his support would be a good idea either. I do still need his help for the powerups, and what if you get sick again, or-”

“I’m suggesting,” Tikki said, “that we don’t need to tell him every detail.”

“Tikki,” Marinette grinned, “are you encouraging me to lie? To the guardian? Doesn’t that break some ancient kwami law or something?”

“Fuck the laws,” Tikki said, which made any of the skepticism Marinette had been feeling fade away. She snorted.

“I’m serious Marinette. You know I always want you to do the right thing. And if the rules are only going to cause pain, then it’s not right to keep upholding them.”

“I agree,” Marinette said.”I didn’t expect to hear a lecture about this from you of all people.”

“Life is full of surprises,” 

Marinette laughed for a second before wincing. Okay, laughing was a bad idea, but she could still smirk. “Surprises like you; endorsing crime and swearing in the same sentence?” she teased.

Tikki grinned. “or surprises like finding out your crush is also your superhero partner who’s in love with you,” she said with mock seriousness before bursting into giggles, which made warmth flood through Marinette’s chest. There was the Tikki she knew and loved.

And then Tikki’s words sunk in. Marinette choked on the air.

“Oh my goodness,” Tikki laughed, “are you just putting this together right now?”

Marinette squeaked. “I just- I realized that Adrien was Chat Noir, but I didn’t realize- Holy Shit Tikki, if Adrien is Chat Noir, that means that Chat Noir is Adrien, which means-“

“Language!” Tikki chided, making Marinette snap out of her daze to playfully swat at her.

“You have no room to lecture me on cursing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tikki said, holding a serious face for a brief moment before she burst out laughing again. It was so soothing to hear her kwami laughing and joking. Even if Chat was Adrien and they were planning a secret mutiny and her ribs were still aching, at least one thing was normal.

“But seriously,” Tikki said. “You should go talk to him.”

“Oh, crap.” Marinette had forgotten that Adrien was still emotionally compromised and waiting on her return. She limped her way back into an upright position and worked the door open, leaning on it for support.

Adrien’s face lit up when he saw her.

“Marinette! I’m so glad you’re alright!”

She knew, instinctively, that he would take her word no matter what she said. She could lie and make up any excuse for why Ladybug was gone, and he’d accept it with no further questions. Somehow, knowing that was the thing that pushed her over the edge.

“I’m Ladybug.”

“Wh-“

“I’m Ladybug.” She said again.

Adrien smiled even wider than he had been.

“I knew it!” he said. “You’re so amazing and smart and caring and-“

“I’m in love with you,” she said.

Whelp.

Apparently, her filter was already turned down so low that she was able to say that to Adrien with a straight face, too.

Adrien’s eyes sparkled, and Marinette’s nerves calmed down a few notches. This was her kitty. She trusted him. She could talk to him.

“I love you too, my Lady Marinette,” he said, and oh wow, it was probably not healthy for her heart to be beating as fast as it was. Adrien looked way too pretty with his smirk and his messy hair and his gorgeous human eyes. His forehead was flushed pink and she wanted to lick it, which was probably not normal, and she needed to touch him. She also needed to calm the heck down before she accidentally triggered him again.

“Can I touch your face?” she asked. She would’ve blushed while saying it, but her face was already as red as it was able to get.

“Um, yea, it’s just a gloves thing, that’s weird, I mean, please touch my face,” Adrien said, and then he immediately started stuttering over his words and trying to hide his face in his shoulder. She stepped forward to walk to him, but the second she was supporting her own weight, her body gave out and she almost crumpled to the ground.

Adrien leaped up to catch her, and she hissed in pain as he lowered her down to the ground as gently as possible.

“My lady? Are you okay?”

Marinette was about to shoo off his concerns, but the thought of lying to Adrien again today made her feel queasy.

“I um… so, you remember Multimouse?”

“Yes?”

“I kinda, um, I wore a ton of miraculous at once and it apparently kinda overwhelmed my body with energy because there are some burn marks where some of the stronger miraculous were sitting and also I used the mouse miraculous at the same time as the ladybug and the cat, which was probably not the best for my health, and I was wearing the cat miraculous around my waist and it had a lot of energy going through it and it kinda broke at least one of my ribs.”

Adrien winced.

“I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I punched you and you had a-”

“Adrien, it’s fine, you didn’t hurt me. My Ladybug suit protects me remember?”

Adrien turned to his kwami, who was still sitting on the ground, watching the entire scene play out while munching on a wedge of cheese.

“Don’t look at me, it’s not my fault,” Plagg said. “The power of destruction is super unpredictable. Marinette got lucky. If the energy of the ring was going overboard enough to crack her ribs, it must have been close to just cataclyming her entirely-” Adrien made a choking sound and Plagg hurriedly continued. “Which is why it’s such a good thing she has the power of luck on her side!”

With extraordinary care, Adrien brushed some of the hair away from Marinette’s forehead.

“I know you’re in charge,” he said, “but maybe, you should consider never doing that again.”

“Oh, I agree,” Marinette said, “this isn’t fun for me either.”

They waited in silence for another moment before Adrien spoke again.

“How did you- how were you in two places at once?”

“Fox miraculous.”

Adrien winced.

“What?”

“You almost died from using too many miraculous, and then you used another one just to keep me from knowing your secret identity?”

“Um, kinda?” 

Adrien closed his eyes and Marinette tried to guess what was going through his brain as he gathered his thoughts.

“I forgot about that rule. We can’t know each other’s identities no matter what. What are we going to tell Fu?”

“Tikki is in favor of not telling him anything.”

Plagg lit up. “Sugarcube? You’re becoming a criminal? I’m so proud!”

“Shut up Plagg! Lying isn’t even a crime, that doesn’t count.” the red kwami said affectionately.

“I’m ready for us to become a band of outlaws,” Plagg said. “Do we get to pick a team name?”

“We are not-”

Adrien waved to Tikki, who shifted her attention away from Plagg.

“I think,” Tikki said, addressing Adrien, “that you already know how much you need to know each other’s secret identities. Most of the worst things that have happened to you two could have been avoided if you two had known who the other was”

Adrien nodded.

“Also,” Plagg said, “you can date each other now and stop tripping over yourselves, and Marinette can get us baked bread and homemade cheese platters every day.”

Adrien coughed and laughed at the same time.

“Do, um, do you want-”

“Can I kiss you?” Marinette’s filter was nonexistent at this point.

“Yeah,” Adrien said breathlessly.

“I can’t sit up, so I think you need to come down here,” Marinette said.

And then Adrien was shifting Marinette’s head off of his lap and onto a bundled up jacket. He moved her so cautiously that Marinette didn’t even feel any pain in her ribcage, or maybe her nerves were just so overloaded that she couldn’t feel anything anymore. It didn’t matter because his face was right next to hers and-

“Adrien? What are you doing?”

Adrien sat up slightly.

“Hi Chloe,” Marinette said.

“Hey, Dupain-Cheng.”

An awkward silence filled the hallway, but then Adrien gently laced his fingers with Marinette’s and she was suddenly okay with staying here forever.

“Did you want to say something?” she asked Chloe when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to leave.

“No, as if. Why would I want to talk to you? That’s utterly ridiculous.”

“Okay? Then why are you still just standing there?”

“Did Ladybug really say that you couldn’t be a superhero anymore?” Chloe blurted out. Her face was bright red and she glared at the wall.

“Yeah, Ladybug’s super strict about keeping identities a secret. She usually doesn’t give a lot of wiggle room to people who break that rule.”

“Oh,” Chloe said dryly. She looked… disappointed? Relieved? Marinette couldn’t quite tell.

“So… she’s like that with everyone?”

“What?” Adrien was gently brushing his fingers through Marinette’s hair, which made it hard to focus on anything, and following Chloe’s questions was near impossible.

“I- you’re sure that’s the only reason that Ladybug won’t let you be the mouse again? You didn’t do anything else to make her mad at you? She’s really that strict about the secret identity rule?”

“Yes?”

“Oh. I didn’t think- I mean nothing, nevermind, I don’t care. I have to go back to class now.” Chloe laughed a little too hysterically as she speed-walked away.

As her footsteps disappeared, silence filled the hallway again.

“So, what now?” Adrien finally asked.

“Well, I still really want to kiss you. And we need to figure out if we’re dating or not and get a really good story to tell our classmates and parents, and I also really need to talk to my parents before they panic even more.”

“Oh yeah, you should know I kind of-“

“You went over to my house and told my parents I was injured and also missing?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So I have to call them soon. Oh, you should call someone to take me to the hospital at some point. But kiss first. That’s the number one priority.”

“Whatever you say, my lady” Adrien’s words were confident, but his face was bright red and his hands were almost shaking as he leaned down to peck Marinette on the lips.

Maybe she was going a little crazy from the adrenaline because she was pretty sure she should be losing her mind over the fact that she was kissing her crush, but it felt more comfortable than anything else. Part of her wanted to pull him in closer and deepen their kiss, but she doubted her injured body would allow that. She focused on appreciating the moment: his lips were warm and soft and tasted like oily lip gloss. He bent his arm at an odd angle to keep his hand intertwined with hers, and he smelled kind of like cheese. Somehow it was perfect. She didn’t want to miss any of it by thinking about all the implications, which might have been the reason she wasn’t overcome with nerves.

“Was that good?” Adrien asked as he sat back up.

Marinette wanted to laugh, but her ribs still wouldn’t let her, so she settled for smiling wide and poking Adrien’s nose.

“Hm, I don’t know, I think you may have to try that again, so I can decide.”

They’d have a lot to deal with later. But they could deal with it together. And right now, Marinette was perfectly content to listen to Plagg’s teasing remarks about how they were “ditching class to suck each other’s faces,” occasionally interrupted by Tikki, trying to convince him to “stop ruining their moment.” If this was the criminal life, she could handle it.

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t worry, Marinette’s parents are going to get a call from Chat Noir very soon, letting them know she’s been found. He’ll also explain that she was given the mouse miraculous by Ladybug and injured in an akuma battle. Tikki will go to Master Fu for some additional medical supplies, and between Adrien, Tikki, and Marinette’s parents, Marinette won’t be allowed take any dumb risks until she’s fully healed. Also, completely unrelatedly, Ladybug is going to call the school sometime soon to let them know that Adrien was helping her on a confidential mission and not ditching class, so they shouldn’t mark him down for missing the end of the school day


End file.
